In the first season of Cobra Kai, there is a scene that most viewers probably ignore. Eli Moskowitz is asked if he is a “special needs” student by Johnny Lawrence in his usual direct manner. Eli responds quietly, almost casually, saying that his doctor says he “could be on the spectrum.” Johnny hardly notices it. The scene continues. However, that one line landed like a key turning in a lock for a portion of the audience, especially those who could identify with Eli.
For a show that hardly ever slows down, it is a brief moment. However, it may be the series’ most subtly important character development.
Since the alternative is worse, Eli is the type of child who blends in when he first arrives at Cobra Kai. His cleft lip scar has caused him years of bullying, which has left him soft-spoken and socially awkward. Early on, Demetri, his closest friend, characterizes him as a man of few words. He doesn’t seem to have much trouble communicating because, at some point, he seems to have realized that talking too much just makes it easier for others to take advantage of him. Many people with autism recognize this type of deliberate self-erasure right away.
What transpires after he joins the Cobra Kai dojo is what makes the character truly intriguing—more intriguing than the show occasionally acknowledges. Eli gains more than just self-assurance. He creates an entirely new identity. Upon closer examination, the mohawk, the tattoo, the new name, and the entire Hawk persona don’t seem like straightforward teenage rebellion. It resembles what researchers refer to as masking, which is the process by which many autistic people adopt a performed version of themselves in order to blend in, be accepted, and survive in hostile or perplexing social environments.
Masking usually works, at least temporarily. Hawk gains popularity. He has a girlfriend. Karate competitions are won by him. The transformation appears to be a success story from the outside. However, the show pays surprisingly close attention to this expense throughout its subsequent seasons. Eli doesn’t simply turn into Hawk.
Many viewers perceive the breakdown that follows as being extremely similar to autistic burnout. During the altercation at the LaRusso residence, all the repressed feelings, the ongoing performance, and the endeavor to uphold an inappropriate persona come crashing down. Multiple demands, multiple voices, an unfeasible circumstance. Then Eli reappears, almost without warning. It’s not exactly a moment of triumph. It’s more akin to witnessing someone emerge after spending too much time underwater.
He completely loses Eli. He pulls away from Demetri, who was acquainted with him prior to this. He upholds an increasingly harsh social code that is unrelated to his true identity. Something has gone terribly wrong by the time he breaks Demetri’s arm during the laser tag fight; it’s not his technique, but rather his identity.
It is difficult to ignore the writers’ meticulous handling of the fallout. It takes more than just picking the ideal dojo to rejoin Miyagi-Do. For Eli, it entails something more uncomfortable: having to be himself around people he has harmed without the armor. The destruction caused by Cobra Kai shaving off his mohawk in retaliation is not vanity. Hawk was the Mohawk. He truly doesn’t know who he is or where he fits in without it. He pulls back.
He completely gives up karate. For many neurodivergent individuals, that type of identity crisis—caused by the loss of a coping strategy that was never entirely healthy in the first place—is nothing new.
The early statement about being “on the spectrum” is never explicitly mentioned again in the show. The authors don’t go over it again, clarify it, or use it to characterize him. Eli is never reduced to his diagnosis, which makes his restraint admirable in certain ways. However, the subtext was never very subtle for viewers who came to the show with their own experiences of masking, burnout, and dressing in a version of themselves that fit the room better than the real one. Beneath the noise, the karate, and the mohawk, the evidence was always present, silent and unwavering.
There’s probably no clear answer to the question of whether the authors drew from recognizable human experience or intended a comprehensive, intentional autism narrative. Eli Moskowitz, a fictional child from the San Fernando Valley, unintentionally became one of the more realistic depictions of what it’s like to be neurodivergent in a society that constantly tells you to be someone else.
